Pages

Monday, August 20, 2012

Since my last post, we let My Father's World K fall to the wayside. We really struggled with getting back into the rhythm and groove of things after our overseas move, which, among other distractions, included leaving our special homeschooling space. Once we were down to doing school maybe once a week, I decided that we weren't getting as much out of it as we could, and that there was no point in forcing it. I realized that there will be plenty of time in the future when we will have to do school, and that at this point we're still ahead of the game. My advice to anyone contemplating doing MFWK with a 4 year old (or even a 5 year old!) would be to wait. Even if you think your child is ready. Even if you're excited about the curriculum.When we first started, Miss K knew her alphabet, the letter sounds, and could sound out 3-4 letter words. I had fallen in love with the MFWK curriculum, and I thought that in another year the material would be too easy for her. I definitely don't regret starting with her before she turned 5. If you've seen my MFW posts, you know that we've had a really great time with it! However, we've also had a great time unschooling over the past six months. We've focused more on simply having fun rather than on a structured learning time, and that obviously isn't to say that we haven't been learning anything. The girls have been studying nature and architecture (well, okay, they called it "building snail playgrounds"). Miss K has been studying math on her own volition, as well as creating her own copywork. We've been learning Spanish. We even took a 5km trip to outer space a few weeks ago. (Now that would have gone well with our Moon unit!) Through play, I've discovered that unit studies will probably be a good match for us in the future. I can also say with confidence that the material in MFWK will not be too easy for Miss K once we get back to it later this fall, and I may even push it back another full year since we have a lot of other stuff going on.
For instance...
I'm also going back to school! But more on that later. Yes, I'm going to leave you hanging. I have to get to bed. For now, I'll just leave you with a picture of the snail playground...